Veteran journalist John Harwood reposted a 20-minute one-on-one interview he did with President Joe Biden “10 days before” Special Counsel Robert Hur‘s interview with the President. Hur’s interview resulted not in criminal charges, but in a venomous political hit job, according to critics, as he questioned Biden’s mental fitness and memory.
Amplifying his own contemporaneous dialogue with Biden, Harwood offers a contradicting narrative and asks viewers concerned about Hur’s “gratuitous” aspersions pertaining to Biden’s mental fitness to “judge for yourself.”
Background: In a controversial maneuver, having concluded that he had no crime with which to charge Biden, Special Counsel Hur padded his narrative by adding a portrayal of the President as a “well-meaning, elderly” man with memory problems — one who would likely present as “sympathetic” to a jury.
The Special Counsel justified this speculation about how a jury might see Biden as part of the reason he chose not to charge the President, though Hur had already written in the report that his exhaustive DOJ-funded investigation “does not establish Mr. Biden’s guilt.”
Former Attorney General Eric Holder and other Biden backers blasted Hur’s insinuations and his method, calling them “gratuitous” — and Biden himself responded — “how dare he?” — with demonstrable anger.
Special Counsel Hur report on Biden classified documents issues contains way too many gratuitous remarks and is flatly inconsistent with long standing DOJ traditions.
— Eric Holder (@EricHolder) February 9, 2024
Had this report been been subject to a normal DOJ review these remarks would undoubtedly have been excised.
Harwood’s video offers what he clearly sees is a dialogue showing Biden in command of his facts and figures, speaking at length and in measured tones about complex issues.
Harwood captioned the post: “As for Biden’s mental fitness, I talked to him one-on-one at the White House 10 days before Hur did. Here’s the video; judge for yourself.”
